Stream:

Download:

Also available on:

“Why Jerusalem?”
Exploring Jerusalem’s hold over the imagination and politics of the world

Joy Gottesman Ungerleider Lecture, 2011

Simon Sebag Montefiore presents an epic history of Jerusalem in his most recent book, Jerusalem: The Biography. Montefiore is a best-selling writer and historian whose books include Catherine the Great & Potemkin, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, and Young Stalin, and the novel Sashenka. In Jerusalem, he portrays in rich detail the empires, wars, religions, and spirituality of the holy city's history, through the eyes of its rulers and inhabitants. Montefiore will be in conversation with George Prochnik, discussing the places at which Jerusalem's legends and realities collide, multiply and divide.

Simon Sebag Montefiore was born in London and studied history at Cambridge University. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he has written ten works of non-fiction and two works of fiction. His books have been published in more than 35 languages, and have received and been shortlisted for numerous literary awards in Europe and the United States. Montefiore lives in London.

George Prochnik is the author of In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise. He is currently at work on an intimate portrait of Jerusalem that delves into the city's natural and supernatural histories. Taking the reader into the wilderness found within the city, and describing its even wilder legends, the book will reveal Jerusalem’s unexpected sensorial riches, as well as the acute environmental pressures that make the city a prophetic microcosm of our global predicament.

This program is made possible with the support of the Dorot Foundation.

LIVE from the NYPL is made possible with generous support from Celeste Bartos, Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos and Adam Bartos, and the Margaret and Herman Sokol Public Education Endowment Fund.